Saturday, December 03, 2005
Rant mode ON - Telco CEO's must be smoking strange stuff
Today I am in rant mode. This was a busy week and I am still catching up with my blog roll. My impression of the week: Some Telco CEOs must be really very desparate and starting to seek relieve in alcohol or smoking strange stuff.
It started some time ago with SBC/ATT CEO Ed Whitacre's comment that Google, MSN and Vonage want to, "use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them . . . these people who use these pipes [have] to pay," BellSouth has copped a similar attitude. The Washington Post reports that BellSouth CTO William L. Smith thinks that BellSouth
This is simply marketing language. Companies implementing price discrimination find that if they frame it as boosting prices, customers (and reporters) react negatively. But if they talk about a sale, everybody loves them. So Smith speaks of boosting performance rather than degrading it.
Discrimination is discrimination! Both SBC and BellSouth have announced they will discriminate! This is a wake-up call. Any Freedom to Connect language in the next telecom act WILL NEED TEETH.
But this is not all:
Jeff reports on the fun from Israel: Say It Ain't So - Israel to Prohibit International VoIP?!
and also points in: Regulations Threaten Nomadic VOIP
to another great piece by Ben Charny: eWeek: Regulations Threaten Nomadic VOIP
You think this is enough for one week? Nada.
Here comes todays Washingon Post: Angy Bellsouth withdrew Donation, New Orleans says
Hours after New Orleans officials announced Tuesday that they would deploy a city-owned, wireless Internet network in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, regional phone giant BellSouth Corp. withdrew an offer to donate one of its damaged buildings that would have housed new police headquarters, city officials said yesterday.
According to the officials, the head of BellSouth's Louisiana operations, Bill Oliver, angrily rescinded the offer of the building in a conversation with New Orleans homeland security director Terry Ebbert, who oversees the roughly 1,650-member police force.
City officials said BellSouth was upset about the plan to bring high-speed Internet access for free to homes and businesses to help stimulate resettlement and relocation to the devastated city. Around the country, large telephone companies have aggressively lobbied against localities launching their own Internet networks, arguing that they amount to taxpayer-funded competition. Some states have laws prohibiting them.
....
I believe that all these threats will finally back-fire.
They all must really be smoking very stange stuff.
It started some time ago with SBC/ATT CEO Ed Whitacre's comment that Google, MSN and Vonage want to, "use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them . . . these people who use these pipes [have] to pay," BellSouth has copped a similar attitude. The Washington Post reports that BellSouth CTO William L. Smith thinks that BellSouth
. . . should be able, for example, to charge Yahoo Inc. for the opportunity to have its search site load faster than that of Google Inc.Illustrating how generic Network Neutrality language might be is-ised out of existence, Smith
. . . was quick to say that Internet service providers should not be able to block or discriminate against Web content or services by degrading their performance . . . Rather, he said, a pay-for-performance marketplace should be allowed to develop on top of a baseline service level that all content providers would enjoy.This is from isen.blog. David continues:
This is simply marketing language. Companies implementing price discrimination find that if they frame it as boosting prices, customers (and reporters) react negatively. But if they talk about a sale, everybody loves them. So Smith speaks of boosting performance rather than degrading it.
Discrimination is discrimination! Both SBC and BellSouth have announced they will discriminate! This is a wake-up call. Any Freedom to Connect language in the next telecom act WILL NEED TEETH.
But this is not all:
Jeff reports on the fun from Israel: Say It Ain't So - Israel to Prohibit International VoIP?!
and also points in: Regulations Threaten Nomadic VOIP
to another great piece by Ben Charny: eWeek: Regulations Threaten Nomadic VOIP
You think this is enough for one week? Nada.
Here comes todays Washingon Post: Angy Bellsouth withdrew Donation, New Orleans says
Hours after New Orleans officials announced Tuesday that they would deploy a city-owned, wireless Internet network in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, regional phone giant BellSouth Corp. withdrew an offer to donate one of its damaged buildings that would have housed new police headquarters, city officials said yesterday.
According to the officials, the head of BellSouth's Louisiana operations, Bill Oliver, angrily rescinded the offer of the building in a conversation with New Orleans homeland security director Terry Ebbert, who oversees the roughly 1,650-member police force.
City officials said BellSouth was upset about the plan to bring high-speed Internet access for free to homes and businesses to help stimulate resettlement and relocation to the devastated city. Around the country, large telephone companies have aggressively lobbied against localities launching their own Internet networks, arguing that they amount to taxpayer-funded competition. Some states have laws prohibiting them.
....
I believe that all these threats will finally back-fire.
They all must really be smoking very stange stuff.
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